


A Dream of Peace and Quiet

by mitchan



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Established Relationship, Grumpy Old Men, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Old Age, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-23
Updated: 2019-04-23
Packaged: 2020-01-25 13:23:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18575332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mitchan/pseuds/mitchan
Summary: Darth Maul came to Tatooine searching for Obi Wan Kenobi. He stayed.





	A Dream of Peace and Quiet

In his dream, they were standing in an old, abandoned temple, surrounded by dense vegetation. The rain was falling, soft and slow, raindrops sinking into the earth, pooling on the crumbling tiles of the courtyard. He could hear the rain pattering, the rustling sounds of the forest, nothing else. There were no screams, blood, or even the niggling, constant feeling of a coming threat.

He and Obi-Wan were young, in the dream, maybe as young as they were when they first met, but Obi-Wan’s gaze, as he caught his eye and smiled, was free of the worries and pressures he’d had back then. They said nothing, looking at the falling rain around them, each lost in his thoughts.

Maul woke just before dawn, and his chest was aching with a deep nostalgia for that dream, a life that never happened, a memory that had never been his. He was left with the feeling that perhaps it could have been, in some other life.

He looked at the cot beside him, where Obi-Wan slept, undisturbed by Maul’s awakening, his white hair in disarray, soft snores coming from him as his chest rose and fell. He closed his eyes and breathed in the chilly, dry desert air, trying to let his mind dispel the heavy feeling the dream left him.

Nightmares were common for him, fragments of memories and alternative versions of past battles and painful defeats. Once in a while, he woke with dread at visions of dark destinies awaiting him. But that dream, with its strange peacefulness and vividness – that was new. And Maul, at his age, was inclined to be suspicious of new things.

By the time Obi-Wan woke up, Maul had finished his morning katas, brought up fresh water from the well, and was cutting dried womp rat meat to eat for breakfast.

Obi-Wan yawned and stretched, took one look at him and frowned.

“You’ve been up since early. Is something wrong?”

Maul grunted in response, and Obi-Wan bided his time, helping with breakfast preparations and doing a short set of morning exercises. As they ate, he listed some of the things they needed to do that day – they were running out of meat, so a hunting expedition was becoming necessary. The small vaporator that complemented the meagre water from the well needed maintenance. The roof of the warehouse got cracked during a storm two weeks ago.

During all this Maul nodded, grunted and ate in silence, slowly. When the meal was finished, he took a sip of the hubba juice Obi-Wan prepared – adding some salt to it made the taste easier to bear, though it made no difference to Maul.

“I had a dream,” he started, slowly.

“A nightmare?” asked Obi-Wan.

“No. It wasn’t a bad dream,” Maul replied.

Obi-Wan frowned. “A vision? Why is it troubling you?”

Maul frowned, and recounted carefully what he could remember of the dream.

“It didn’t really feel like a vision. It was just… odd,” he said.

“Maybe you could try meditating with me today. It could offer some clarity,” Obi-Wan offered, before getting up and starting to clean up the kitchen.

Maul didn’t reply. He got up and grabbed the bag of tools and made his way outside. “I’ll go check on the vaporator,” he said. The short walk, the routinary and slow-going work with the machinery under the scorching heat of the twin suns helped bring him back to the present, finally banishing the dream and the lingering feeling of nostalgia. As the suns started the midday peak, he trudged back inside, the relative coolness of the habitation dome a welcome relief.

 

 

Kenobi had tried to fix the holo-reader again, all its parts were strewn across the table.

“I think you just broke the one part that was still serviceable,” Maul scolded him, examining the mess. “Didn’t we agree to leave fixing the machinery to me?”

“You were already busy with the vaporator, I just wanted to help!” argued Obi-Wan.

“Well, you’re not helping!” Maul pointed out, and was surprised to perceive a spike of real anger from Obi-Wan, his eyes flashing dangerously. A part of him rejoiced in the feeling, wanted to egg him on, see how far he could make the Jedi go. But the rest of him was tired from working out in the sun, and desperately needed food and a nap.

He raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. “We can do the rest this evening. Did you at least… is there anything for lunch?” he asked.

“What am I, a cooking droid?” Obi-Wan said, a bit of irritation showing on his voice.

“No. More like my wife,” Maul deadpanned.

Obi-Wan froze before him, face going from belligerent to offended to reluctantly amused. He scoffed. “Ha ha. Funny. I swear, sometimes, you’re worse than-” he stopped in mid sentence, a grave mood overtaking him. “I made cold soup,” he said, turning his back to Maul, taking it out from the conservator.

They ate in tense silence, an uneasy truce between them. They didn’t fear the other would take out their lightsaber, in such occasions, they followed an unwritten rule to let the other calm down and speak when they couldn’t stand the silence anymore.

Obi-Wan didn’t wait long. When they had finished their meal and Maul was putting away the dishes, he spoke up. “Some days, it’s like I… I almost miss the Clone Wars,” he confessed from his place at the table.

“Do you?” asked Maul, turning to look at him. The former Jedi General was looking down at his hands, his face lined, hair white, worn down by his years as a hermit in the desert. A desert rat, nothing but a tired old man.

“I don’t… I don’t miss the horror of it all. The deaths caused and witnessed. No. But… I suppose I’m old enough to be honest about this. I was raised as a warrior, to struggle for a cause, to defeat my opponents. General Kenobi seems so far away from me, now. Sometimes I feel so… useless.” Obi-Wan finally looked up at him, searching for something in Maul’s eyes.

“It’s not an easy feeling to deal with,” Maul answered, honestly. He would know, better than most. Obi Wan nodded, understanding.

Maul turned and walked to the cooler bedroom further inside the house. “Come take a nap,” he invited in a shy murmur, without pausing to look back.

The bedsheets were cool against his skin, and when Obi-Wan joined him, he kept his distance. Maul closed his eyes and focused on his own breathing, on Obi-Wan’s, quieting his mind. As he sank into a light doze, it came to him again, the image of the abandoned temple, strong roots bursting through the cracked tiles, covering walls and entrances, a quiet forest surrounding the place, like a mother embracing a child.

It was hard to maintain that image as soon as he woke up, the dry, hot air of noon sucking out the moisture from their skin. Obi-Wan had a sweet, peaceful look on his face as he opened his eyes and gazed at him. Maul scooted closer on the bed and kissed him, a press of lips on chapped lips. Obi-Wan smiled.

“What would I do without you?” he whispered.

“Become a full-on crazy hermit,” Maul muttered back. Kenobi laughed.

“The legend of Ben Kenobi, friend to banthas and terror of the Tusken Raiders,” said Obi-Wan.

“Hmm. You’re too proud of the rumors. I always knew you enjoyed fighting Tuskens as much as I do,” said Maul, whispering against his lips.

Obi-Wan kissed him with intent, a blatant ploy to distract him and avoid the topic of conversation.

Maul let him.

 

 

In the afternoon, they fixed the warehouse roof in silence, and as the suns began to sink in the horizon, they set out to hunt womp-rats. It wasn’t as exciting as the hunt for a krayt dragon, but it was far easier to do in a few hours, staking out the nearest nests, aiming for the largest womp-rates they could find. They got enough to last for a few days, and started the walk back home.

As always, Obi Wan paused as the suns set and the cool night air started to rush back in, to focus on a point in the distance, reaching into the Force, checking on his charge. Maul stopped beside him, watching the setting suns light up the sky.

“I just wish it hadn’t been a _desert_ ,” Maul complained, mostly for the sake of it.

Obi-Wan gave a half-smile and shrugged.

After a more relaxed dinner in the cool of the night, Obi-Wan sat down for meditation. In a sudden impulse, Maul sat down beside him. Obi Wan turned his head to look at him, surprised, but Maul didn’t look back. Instead, he focused on stretching and aligning the line of his spine. He inhaled deeply, and listened to Obi Wan’s breathing beside him, the wind howling along the valleys and cliffs in the desert outside, the distant cries of a batha herd.

This was different to the moving connection to the Dark Side he felt when he was running, hunting, fighting, struggling for his life. This was a quiet, peaceful connection to the world around him. It was acceptance – of his death, his life, the world around him.

Beside him, Kenobi’s connection to the Light shone like a lone fire in the desert night – bright, warm, inviting, and safe. The Dark was also there, settled deeply in Maul, rooted in his past, and currents of it ran beneath Obi-Wan’s peace– the fear of what was to come, the restlessness of the wait, old hurts and angers half-buried for years, waiting for a chance to come to the surface.

Breathing deeply, he took it all in.

And slowly, the feelings of the dream came back to him, and he recognized them. They were a part of himself he’d ignored for many years. A deep longing for a peace and belonging he’d rarely found.

The image came to him unbidden, a memory of that evening – he and Obi-Wan watching the sunset in silence, everything sliding away from them, there was only the desert, the wind, the suns on the horizon, and the two of them.

Beside him, Obi-Wan let out a deep breath, and Maul knew he was seeing the same thing, through their connection, a tenuous bond in the Force, growing firmer by the day.

Perhaps that was why later that night, as they lay side by side on the bed, Obi-Wan whispered a question he’d never dared to ask: “When you first came here to find me… did you come to kill me? Or did you come to die?”

“You’re afraid,” Maul commented, a question in his voice.

“I think I’ve… I’ve been waiting. For you to make your choice,” Obi-Wan confessed. 

“I did choose, Kenobi,” Maul said, and he wrapped his arms around the old Jedi, his former, bitter enemy. “I chose this,” he said.

Obi Wan huffed out a long breath. “I guess I hadn’t realized…” he muttered.

Maul smiled, a true, honest smile. “I think I hadn’t, either,” he said.

“So… was this what you were looking for?” asked Obi Wan.

“In a way… it is,” Maul said, pressing a dry kiss on Obi Wan’s forehead.

When they finally fell asleep, no dreams from past or future came to haunt them that night.

  


THE END

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this a long time ago, inspired by other fics where Maul stays with Obi Wan on Tatooine, but I abandoned it because I didn't have the inspiration to make it into something longer. Finally I decided to give it a chance as a one-shot, I polished it as well as I could and hopefully it makes sense. 
> 
> This isn't beta-read. Constructive feedback is very welcome.


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